Step 2: Install AE enabled xbmc
As of 2012-11-27 nightly is AE enabled and to install it just go to raspbmc settings addon and install the latest nightly from there.

Step3: Configure xbmc to use AE
By default AE is turned off and to enable AE we need to go to raspbmc settings addon and go the system settings tab and enable "Audio Engine". Restart XBMC is needed (some user reported back that restart pi is needed in order for it to work)

Just to clarify that if audio engine is disabled then xbmc should behave exactly the same as the one of the xbmc nightly. Please also make sure HDMI is selected when audio engine is disabled if you want audio to go from hdmi.

then head over to xbmc's system settings and pick the right passthrough device.

Audio/Video Sync issues

Audio/Video can go out of sync for around 0.5 - 1 second when forward/backward skip is pressed during playback. Pause/Play has no effect on sync, i.e. you can play/pause many times you want and should not make audio and video out of syn as long as you do not seek

Please make sure your usb sound card/speakers has native support for 48K sample rate which is most sample rate used for video files. If the sound card/speakers does not native support the sample rate of the audio file, it will make the audio/video sync problems a lot worse.

Onboard audio (hdmi/analogue) device
With latest RC5 update this is not possible due to problem at compiling kernel alsa driver
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You can enable the experimental alsa driver for the onboard device by

Code:

sudo modprobe snd-bcm2835

This will not survive after a reboot and to make it auto load you should put a entry like snd-bcm2835 inside /etc/modules.
Audio/Video sync does not work reliable for the alsa driver snd-bcm2835 and if you experience out of sync at starting of the video you should stop it and then start it again.
Do not pause/play too often and too much for alsa driver snd-bcm2835 as this may cause xbmc/pulseaudio to freeze. If this happens you have to restart xbmc.

Performance turning
I would recommend use "Super" performance profile if you have usb install.

Trouble Shootings
If you see whitescreen loops then post the results of

Code:

ldd /home/pi/.xbmc-current/xbmc-bin/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin

If there is no sound please run the following during audio/video playback

Gave this a shot, xbmc is super-unstable (it crashed 3x just trying to install the youtube addon). Couldn't get videos to play. Did get (distorted) sound when paging through menus though.

I edited config.txt with the usb line, but when I run "reboot" it seems to....not actually reboot. The screen goes blank but even if I leave for 15 minutes and come back, the system hasn't rebooted. Only pulling the power and reapplying resets it. (and after that, it just boots to the raspbmc logo, not back into xbmc)